November 14, 2008

Is this some backdoor way of pushing for the preeminence and preservation of White culture not unlike the rallying cry of David Duke type of White nationalist, albeit, a much more stealthy, more benign kind of “white culture”? I thought White anti-racism, on some level, seeks to “abolish the White race” (or act as saboteurs) and, by extension, white race-culture — i.e. the race-focused, color-line race culture created by Whites?

So, I have to ask: Why do White Americans want to have something they can call “white culture”? And when they say they feel a “lack of culture” when compared to other groups, what other groups have anything resembling a racialized construct for their culture for Whites to say, “we don’t have/see something commonly called “white” culture like they have [insert a color] culture.”

(Note: The notion makes culture a race/racial product as opposed to the result of the collection of ethnic or national beliefs and customs. Again, what is “no white culture” being compared to?)

I’m still at the “what is this all about?” stage. Which is the reason I asked why do White Americans want or wished they had “something commonly called white culture” like WET (White Entertainment TV), WAR (White Agenda Report)… like explicitly calling sports “white” hockey/soccer, “white” hunting/fishing and other things “white” guns & religion would make everything all better.

Certainly the “we don’t see something commonly called ‘white’ culture” sentiment sounds like those White Americans bemoan some sense, perhaps, even a “real sense of loss” of White culture. Of course, country’s shifting demographics have been met with “State of Emergency” calls to recognize the “Whiteness” of American culture and to preserve that Whiteness. But we’re not talking about ostensibly “racist” (as in overtly racist or racially antagonistic) whites. So what gives?

MYTH BUSTING

Well, it’s not like I haven’t questioned the validity of what Macon believes to be self-evident. Let us expand on that for just a brief moment, shall we:

“… a groundbreaking new study on whiteness and race relations by University of Minnesota sociologists shows that whites in the U.S. are far more conscious of being white–and the privileges it brings–than was believed. The survey is packed with fascinating findings, some surprising (a stunning proportion of whites–77%–say their race has a distinct culture that should be preserved)…”

With that duly noted, casting doubt on the “no white culture” myth/belief/sentiment really isn’t what I wanted to do here. What drove me to make this blog-post was the initial questions I posed and my rereading of the discussion we already had.

Trying to get to the bottom of this, I kept asking Macon questions he just couldn’t answer. He couldn’t answer because he was intent on continuing the charade. A charade that was fully exposed when he explained:

“… white people don’t perceive some collective, simply “white” culture of their own, and they do tend to perceive others as having it.

So some white Americans, many of whom aren’t even sure which countries their relatives came from, feel a lack, a “hole” in this sense…”

I kept asking Macon about the last part, especially how not knowing where one’s relatives came from was part of the idea of a lack of “WHITE” culture and how that had anything to do with people/groups that aren’t “white.” Macon obviously couldn’t answer. I noticed that. But what I didn’t notice was just how Macon was restating what the author, Tochluk, had been driving at herself.

“White folks who cannot fully recapture a lost cultural heritage, like myself, often experience a real sense of loss…”

In the midst of our discussion, I completely blanked on the first part and, instead, focused on the “real sense of loss” clause. But Tochluk’s lament about “lost cultural heritage” was a theme that ran throughout the piece Macon quoted from.

“..many of us find ourselves looking at other groups and longing for the connection we imagine they feel with their roots, their homeland, their culture…”

Now the picture is starting to form. Tochluk wishes she had a connection to a cultural heritage that has, somehow, been severed. So, if Macon is right, then White Americans like Tochluk, at that time in her life, feel like something has disrupted or cut off the connection from the “white culture” they used to know to the “no white culture” they have today? Is that what he is saying? Was that what Tochluk was talking about?

Obviously not.

TRADITION TRADED IN FOR WHITENESS

Tochluk amazing illustration of the kind of ephinany she had when she witnessed a White performing artist dramatize the blandness of whiteness ended with this revealing and important statement:

I stood transfixed in front of the white female artist. She sat on a chair on a square stage four feet above the crowd in a glass case. She wore a delicate white dress and was holding a bag from Pier 1 Imports. She admired the exotic artifacts from lands abroad one after the other. I stood transfixed for several minutes, trying to sort out the emotion rising in me.

There was something very discomforting about seeing her that way. I recognized that woman. She was me. Or at least, she had been me. She was my mother. She was my grandmother, perhaps to some lesser degree. I felt that, that blandness, that plainness, that whiteness. I felt her whiteness as a lack, a loss. I felt this loss in my bones. I could barely move as I was reminded of how I loved what other cultures have precisely because I know the emptiness that results when tradition is traded in for whiteness.

And what tradition would that be? Well, I’d suggest a little consideration for what’s been considered in “How The Irish Became White“:

Ironically, Irish Catholics came to this country as an oppressed race yet quickly learned that to succeed they had to in turn oppress their closest social class competitors, free Northern blacks. Back home these “native Irish or papists” suffered something very similar to American slavery under English Penal Laws. Yet, despite their revolutionary roots as an oppressed group fighting for freedom and rights, and despite consistent pleas from the great Catholic emancipator, Daniel O’Connell, to support the abolitionists, the newly arrived Irish-Americans judged that the best way of gaining acceptance as good citizens and to counter the Nativist movement was to cooperate in the continued oppression of African Americans. Ironically, at the same time they were collaborating with the dominant culture to block abolition, they were garnering support from among Southern, slaveholding democrats for Repeal of the oppressive English Act of the Union back home. Some even convinced themselves that abolition was an English plot to weaken this country.

Upon hearing of this position on the part of so many of his fellow countrymen now residing in the United States, in 1843 O’Connell wrote: “Over the broad Atlantic I pour forth my voice, saying, come out of such a land, you Irishmen; or, if you remain, and dare countenance the system of slavery that is supported there, we will recognize you as Irishmen no longer.” It’s a tragic story. In a letter published in the Liberator in 1854, it was stated that “passage to the United States seems to produce the same effect upon the exile of Erin as the eating of the forbidden fruit did upon Adam and Eve. In the morning, they were pure, loving, and innocent; in the evening, guilty.”

Irish and Africans Americans had lots in common and lots of contact during this period; they lived side by side and shared work spaces. In the early years of immigration the poor Irish and blacks were thrown together, very much part of the same class competing for the same jobs. In the census of 1850, the term mulatto appears for the first time due primarily to inter-marriage between Irish and African Americans. The Irish were often referred to as “Negroes turned inside out and Negroes as smoked Irish.” A famous quip of the time attributed to a black man went something like this: “My master is a great tyrant, he treats me like a common Irishman.” Free blacks and Irish were viewed by the Nativists as related, somehow similar, performing the same tasks in society. It was felt that if amalgamation between the races was to happen, it would happen between Irish and blacks. But, ultimately, the Irish made the decision to embrace whiteness, thus becoming part of the system which dominated and oppressed blacks. Although it contradicted their experience back home, it meant freedom here since blackness meant slavery.

… And so, we have the tragic story of how one oppressed “race,” Irish Catholics, learned how to collaborate in the oppression of another “race,” Africans in America, in order to secure their place in the white republic. Becoming white meant losing their greenness, i.e., their Irish cultural heritage and the legacy of oppression and discrimination back home. Imagine if the Irish had remained green after their arrival and formed an alliance with their fellow oppressed co-workers, the free blacks of the North.

The thing to note here is that Macon got Tochluk all wrong. Tochluk was not expressing a desire for or otherwise bemoaning the lack of “some collective, simply white culture” to call her own. Quite the opposite. Tochluk was making a statement against any and everything that is or could be called “white culture” because of what WHITENESS had wrought — Whiteness being the historical assimilation process in the U.S. that European immigrants went through that severed the connection to the particulars and essence of their individual ethnic cultures in an attempt to E Pluribus Unum them into a collective “white” culture of dubious virtue and, perhaps, even more dubious in value.

Like this:

Related

I asked why do White Americans want or wished [sic] they had “something commonly called white culture” like WET (White Entertainment TV), WAR (White Agenda Report)… like explicitly calling sports “white” hockey/soccer, “white” hunting/fishing and other things “white” guns & religion would make everything all better.

Four words: African American History Month. Many whites see such things and wonder (naively), “Where’s our month? Where’s our ‘white’ fraternity? etc.” Which is not to say I myself bemoan some loss of white culture, nor that I think claiming a white culture would suddenly make everything better–I don’t see anything to embrace about whiteness, though I do see a hell of a lot to claim responsibility for.

And I also wasn’t saying in that other discussion thread, by the way, that Tochluk bemoaned the loss of some white culture, rather than a lost “ethnic” cultural heritage (though I imagine you might be able to pluck out some partial, misleadingly decontextualized quote from my writing to “prove” that I did); I was instead explaining why white people don’t commonly perceive a common, detailed, distinct, plain old “white” culture that they could grab onto INSTEAD of a lost cultural heritage.

Nquest, it’s great that you’ve arrived by the end of this post at one of the fundamental points of Critical Whiteness Studies 101. Hooray for you.

However, in yet another effort to say that I “couldn’t answer” your questions and that I was “intent” on keeping up some sort of “charade” (wtf?), you’re wrong again. For some weird reason, you insist on setting up this virtual “me,” Macon, as some sort of devious, lying, charade-playing strawman. I actually was answering your questions in that other thread, as fully and honestly as I could–you just didn’t understand my answers, or else evaded them, and then decided to blame me for that. Maybe now that you’ve come to understand some CWS 101, your ability to understand such answers as I provided has improved. (And you call me, repeatedly, a “dumbazz”?) Either that or you just ignored my answers, in your own bizarre “charade.”

So I see that in your vainglorious bout of “myth-busting” here, you hold up once again that one study that you claimed months ago disproves the common scholarly understanding that white people don’t commonly perceive a detailed, embraceable, common “white” culture:

a stunning proportion of whites–77%–say their race has a distinct culture that should be preserved

So one article you found cites a survey where whites answered some question–and how it was worded, we don’t know–and you think that means they can identify, describe, and then decide whether to embrace some specific, distinct “white culture.” Well I got news for you, right from the snowy heart of whiteness–far, far less than 77% can. In fact, when asked to describe “just plain ‘white culture,'” most white folks will answer like this woman, who’s trying to describe what being white means to her:

If I had an ethnic base to identify from, if I was even Irish American, that would have been something formed, if I was a working-class woman, that would have been something formed. But to be a Heinz 57 American, a white, class-confused American, land of the Kleenex type American, is so formless in and of itself. It only takes shape in relation to other people. (source)

You haven’t disproven the particular constested claim, which was that most white people perceive a common white culture that they could chose to embrace.

You also wrote:

I kept asking Macon about the last part, especially how not knowing where one’s relatives came from was part of the idea of a lack of “WHITE” culture and how that had anything to do with people/groups that aren’t “white.” Macon obviously couldn’t answer.

Wrong–I did provide that information. But apparently, you didn’t understand it. And now you’re just ignoring it:

. . . yes, they sometimes turn to what you call “subsets,” ethnic European heritages. But those aren’t simply white culture, because they’re not shared by all white people, and they’re not recognized as, or called, simply “white culture.” They’re “ethnic,” and indeed, the word ethnic gained prominence precisely to distinguish from (and often discriminate against) European immigrants and practices.

So again, white people often feel a lack, or “hole” in Tochluk’s terms, because they often THINK (yes, erroneously) that various POC have discernible, embraceable cultures, but that there is no common, embraceable, plain “white culture.” So again, they turn to ethnic subsets, like German American or whatever, and sometimes, as Tochluk says, to what they perceive as other cultures, which usually means “commodity racism,” bits and pieces of purchased, foreign, “exotic” or otherwise romanticized culture.

Anyway, once again, as so often happens, your charges against what I write are groundless.

You know, it’s true that you used to make points about things I’d written on my blog that made sense, and that sometimes led me to reconsider certain posts. But now I can clearly see what I’d forgotten, which was what made me give up trying to communicate with you for awhile–when we do so, I spend a lot of time offering detailed, honest answers to your charges and questions (and what you want to talk about in regards to what I write is ALWAYS something that you claim I shouldn’t have written), but you fail to understand what I’m saying, all while continually mischaracterizing me as a devious moron. So, I hope that more CWS studies elevate your capacity to grasp this stuff. But I don’t have any more interest in communicating with you about it.

>I stood transfixed in front of the white female artist. She sat on a chair on a square stage four feet above the crowd in a glass case. She wore a delicate white dress and was holding a bag from Pier 1 Imports. She admired the exotic artifacts from lands abroad one after the other.

The class case symbolizes for me something different, the disconnection from ones own humanity and being. The soul of whiteness is a cold one and whites within this collective aren’t so free as many might believe. On an emotional level white culture and Eurocentrism is exactly this ‘glass cage’.

You tried to claim that’s what Tochluk felt was lacking when that was expressly NOT what she said. You, sir, are a full-of-chickenshit fraud. Tochluk said NOTHING like “I wished there was a WHITE history month” or WET or any of that Stormfront nonsense you’re trying to put a nicey whitey spin on. Like a White child in American schools can’t see the WHITE history told by all the prominent characters discussed in all but one month and can’t see the WHITE historical narrative pervade in even that so-called Black History Month.

You, sir, are a FRAUD!

I also wasn’t saying in that other discussion thread, by the way, that Tochluk bemoaned the loss of some white culture

STOP LYING!!!

You were asked SPECIFICALLY: “why would she feel a real sense of loss?”

So, it’s obvious, you lumped Tochluk in with the rest of White Americans whom you think suffer some “sense of loss” because there isn’t a RACIALIZED idea like WHITE History Month. WHITE HISTORY MONTH!!!?!?!!

I actually was answering your questions in that other thread, as fully and honestly as I could

No, you were not. You were spouting textbook (nothing “critical” about them) Whiteness talking points with no regard for what the actual question. It’s clear all you have are these ideas you believe Whiteness studies are all about and you think that stuff applies in every situation. You’re a talentless, know-nothing using what little bit you think you know indiscriminately and with uncanny precision in situations, in this case Tochluk’s, when it doesn’t apply because, knowing nothing, you think the stuff you’ve been taught applies at all times and in all situations no matter what’s been said.

You approach far too many situations with a prejudice mindset. That is, before you actually know what is being stated/argued, you have your preconceived notions in your head and before you hear/read an author like Tochluk out on the basis of a code word or two, you’ve already decided what the person is talking about before they finish. That, or you always have a hell of a time keeping what they said vs. what you think (your preconceived ideas) straight when it comes time to discuss the meaning behind what THEY say. Again, you were asked SPECIFICALLY: “why would she feel a real sense of loss?”

That you went about explaining why white people don’t commonly perceive a common “white” culture is nothing but an unwitting admission that you were trying to AVOID the question you were asked. Period.

So one article you found cites a survey

One article/survey compared to your…. what?? What have you ever cited as support for what you claim? NOTHING. Yet, I’ve cited more than just “one article.” But since you want to play: that’s ONE to your NONE.

And notice how you can’t answer the natural flowing question:

Why do White Americans want to have something they can call “white culture”? And when they say they feel a “lack of culture” when compared to other groups, what other groups have anything resembling a racialized construct for their culture for Whites to say, “we don’t have/see something commonly called “white” culture like they have [insert a color] culture.”

You are so junior varsity. Strike that. You’re such a rookie and it’s clear you’re just not ready.
(Note: That’s a question about WHITE AMERICANS not to be confused with questions about Tochluk.)

As for “struggle when asked what being white means to them”… LMAO!!!

You want to dismiss an actual scientific study by actual professionals engaged in Whiteness Studies on the basis of (what???) how the question is worded when your thread wasn’t about whether Whites perceive there to be something like a “white culture” they can “enthusiastically”… “embrace” (the essence of the charade; your “I don’t see” statement, full acknowledgment of the charade). lol

So, it is as stated: A CHARADE. Here you are saying, in essence, because “White Americans don’t see something commonly called white culture” they’ve come to actually believe or feel that there is no White culture when the custom is to, as you said, AVOID using the term White.

Wrong–I did provide that information. But apparently, you didn’t understand it. And now you’re just ignoring it

No, Macon, you don’t understand simple English. The question, again, was SPECIFICALLY about what Tochluk said. You were arguing for you OFF THE DAMN POINT talking-point. Tochluk wasn’t bemoaning the loss of or expressing a desire for “white culture… shared by all white people.” She specifically charged Whiteness with causing the loss of whatever her individual ethnic heritage would have been had it developed, untouched, by the process of assimilation into Whiteness.

You were OFF THE POINT and, therefore, NEVER could answer the question and, actually, NEVER attempted to. Nothing you just quoted answers, or even addresses, the issue of “how not knowing where one’s relatives came from was part of the idea of a lack of “WHITE” culture.”

Let me spell it out to your slow azz… By definition, knowing where you relatives came from can only take you back to an ethnic/national cultural origins and not a racialized one. YOU chose to make the statement:

Let me break it down even further. You’re saying White Americans don’t feel like there is a “white culture” because they don’t know their ethnic cultural heritage. On one hand, you contrast the two and say knowledge of White “ethnic” heritage doesn’t satisfy the desire for a “white culture… shared by all white people” (see if you can answer WHY there is a desire for a racialized culture in the first place). Then, on the other hand, you mentioned how Whites not knowing where their relatives came from contributes to the “hole.”

The simple question is: what does one have to do to the other?

The simple truth of the matter is: you are confused. You’re forever pretzelizing yourself, talking out of all sides of your mouth and, as a result, always saying things that don’t make sense.

When I asked you about your statement (“the last part”),I asked: the whole “which countries their relatives came from” thing takes us back to where, Macon?

It’s clear it’s your capacity to do anything beyond spouting what amounts to talking points is what is at issue here. It’s clear that you’re just not ready or just aren’t talented enough (i.e. gifted with the mental capacity to actually process information and apply it properly or thoughtfully in different situations).

So some white Americans, many of whom aren’t even sure which countries their relatives came from, feel a lack, a “hole” in this sense

Basically what you were saying is: White Americans don’t feel like there is a “white culture” because they don’t know their ethnic cultural heritage. Huh?

Run that dumb sh*t by me again, Macon. I’m not your English teacher so I won’t tolerate you paraphrasing stuff all indiscriminately in a pathetic attempt to bullshit me. You will have to show that you actually understand the subject matter beyond being able to parrot a couple of lines or not-so-creatively restate the same idea as if you’re saying something different, much less something that actually addresses the issue at hand.

Oh and I just caught the funny… Now Macon is claiming I’ve characterized him as a “devious moron.”

ROFLMAO!!!

Now what I have done is characterized some of your responses as “desperate” and that bit of creative writing is the epitome of it. But I guess you can’t help but feel STUPID when I can’t help but point out the STUPID the kind of bs you try to pull.

And this question wasn’t about you “many [White Americans] aren’t even sure which countries their relatives came from” and YOU made that an issue. So which racial groups do you see as those who know where their relatives came from?

Why do White Americans want to have something they can call “white culture”? And when they say they feel a “lack of culture” when compared to other groups, what other groups have anything resembling a racialized construct for their culture for Whites to say, “we don’t have/see something commonly called “white” culture like they have [insert a color] culture.”

So why did you reflexively jump up to answer it for yourself, personally?

Remember you tried to be cute when you said, “Whites and African Americans aren’t the only two racial groups in America.” So fill in the blank:

“Whites don’t see something commonly called “white” culture like they see [insert a color] culture.”

Oh, wait… Let’s look at what you said here. “Four words: African American History Month.”

Okay, I’m waiting for you to illustrate with your examples, points of reference, etc. that “Whites and African Americans aren’t the only two racial groups in America.” Of course, you know how many times you’ve been caught using the term “non-whites” when the only thing you ever thought you had actual information on were Blacks/African-Americans. In the “handshake” thread and in the “express amazement” thread, all you had was what you thought you gathered from African-Americans but you still used that as representative or a stand-in for all non-whites.

Nevertheless, senor chickenshit, let’s see you point to the “other racial groups” Whites look at with the idea that X racial group “knows where their relatives came from”, since that was the issue at hand and THE STATEMENT YOU CHOOSE TO MAKE. You said

what I find odd is already the term “white culture” used in a frame of skin-color. It implies that skin-color or group defines somebody’s culture and ignores also the fact that certain groups (independend of race) develop their culture or certain traditions within a dominant culture and in Western countries this dominant culture is European=Eurocentric.
Culture is passing on of traditions, customs, language, religion etc. within the given framework.
As an example, the culture of Berlin/Germany and rural Bavaria differs a lot from each other, but both are based on Eurocentrism

and this:
>If I had an ethnic base to identify from, if I was even Irish American, that would have been something formed, if I was a working-class woman, that would have been something formed. But to be a Heinz 57 American, a white, class-confused American,

I also believe that white Americans tend to idealize or so European heritage or what they think is European. Leavenworth, the “Bavarian” village, is nothing else than the collection of all stereotypes one can have about Bavaria.

Macon, I think you suck. You become more and more white, or let’s say, your ability to hide your whiteness weakens.
Until now it never occured to yourself, that you want to be an oxymoron: Somebody who is about ‘discovering’ whiteness and at the same time wanting to be the expert.

You without true knowledge, knowledge includes understanding, you believe you are in the position to tell somebody if s/he is right or not.
You without knowledge write something and then automatically, because of the magical whiteness, it becomes true for you.
You never can admit any mistake. You never show any responsibility towards anti-racism. The only thing you do is trying to defend you and your whiteness. Again, you should shut down your blog which is counter-productive to this what you allegedly want to do.
Your lack of any self-reflection and insight is part of your whiteness and your empty lip-service also.
What came out of your “PoC know more about whiteness than whites” and your “listen, listen, listen”? You don’t want to listen to PoC but you only listen to praise of your sickness.
Join your friends on stormfront.org, your heart is closer to them than to dismantling racism and shut down your fucked up blog. Shut down your white arrogance and protect yourself from more and more displaying your stupidity on the worldwide net.

and something in addition Macon: At anti-racist places, like your blog pretents to be, those people who should feel welcomed there and also comfortable, are PoC. Not whites. Anti-racist places where PoC are censored or also whites who don’t agree with you, is not an anti-racist place. A place where a white male like you still wants to remain in power, in power of what is valid and not, and a place where a white male like you is able to get white support against People of Color is a racist place without showing any sincerity behind this what you want to claim to be.

jw(be), why are you lumping in Nquest like that with all other POC? That’s racist! What he has to say about my blog (and about me) is very different from what most of the many POC who visit my blog, and like it, have to say.

POC are welcome at my blog, and so is Nquest, when he doesn’t try to hijack threads (and the idea that he isn’t able to do that because it’s a blog run by a white person, as has been stated here before, is ridiculous). Your characterization of me as someone who never admits he’s wrong, and of my blog as a non-POC-friendly place are patently false. In fact, an African American woman, who runs a blog I like a lot, just gave mine an award:

What he has to say about my blog (and about me) is very different from what most of the many POC who visit my blog, and like it, have to say.

Okay, list the comments “most of the many POC” have said on the topics I’ve commented on and show how “different” their comments are ON THOSE TOPICS… Otherwise, keep my name out your mouth and stop making me laugh with your “some of my best friends are Black” kind of logic (re: KIT’s award for you).

Restructure, looks like I was right. Macon may not grant you honorary White status but he didn’t figure he had a point to make/prove by saying something that amounts to “an Asian American woman likes my blog.”

That explains. You’re not quite the POC that I am. So there’s a reason why Macon responded so differently to you saying he was intellectually dishonest (first) than he did when I said it (second, co-signing you).

restructure, nquest. Your intellect is far beoyond mine. But I take take strength everyday from your reasoned critiques and truth; I only wish I could summon my own voice. Someday I will, with your inspiration. I am not so smart..but i know bullhit when I see it on that notorious blog I avoid to keep my somewhat fragile (growing stronger) spirit intact.

okanagoan, I hope your spirit continues its growth. I’m also saddened to read that you let the poison pens/keyboards here distort your impression of the spirit of my blog. “Notorious” is an odd way to describe it. I welcome your comments there anytime, of course.

Yup. Nq, I just KNEW you were going to do this! Gawd, you’re so predictable:

Okay, list the comments “most of the many POC” have said on the topics I’ve commented on and show how “different” their comments are ON THOSE TOPICS… Otherwise, keep my name out your mouth and stop making me laugh with your “some of my best friends are Black” kind of logic (re: KIT’s award for you).

More decontextualized misrepresentation. Look, I wrote about the many POC who enjoy my blog in answer to jw(be)’s charge that it’s an unfriendly place for POC,. She claimed that because I’ve declined publication of a couple of comments by two POC (Nquest and Restructure!) out of the many, many comments there by other POC. Ergo, it’s not an unfriendly place to POC. I’m not holding up “black friends” in some simple-minded effort to prove I’m not racist–I was talking about what jw(be) said about the population of my blog readers, which she implied was all white.

Nquest, that’s one ugly expression you like using, “Keep your name out of my mouth.” It suits your online personality well. Using all caps does too–RELEASE THE FURY!!!!!! As for listing comments by POC on the topics you’ve commented on, who cares? I’m not your errand boy. And anyway, that’s not the issue at hand, no matter how much you’d like to make it that way.

>and something in addition Macon: At anti-racist places, like your blog pretents to be, those people who should feel welcomed there and also comfortable, are PoC. Not whites. Anti-racist places where PoC are censored or also whites who don’t agree with you, is not an anti-racist place. A place where a white male like you still wants to remain in power, in power of what is valid and not, and a place where a white male like you is able to get white support against People of Color is a racist place without showing any sincerity behind this what you want to claim to be.

and your answer:
>POC are welcome at my blog, and so is Nquest, when he doesn’t try to hijack threads (and the idea that he isn’t able to do that because it’s a blog run by a white person, as has been stated here before, is ridiculous). Your characterization of me as someone who never admits he’s wrong, and of my blog as a non-POC-friendly place are patently false.

You ignore the culture of power dynamics of our society. And you perhaps are not aware of these power dynamics also in (real life) organizing etc. I am talking with my white female perspective which also includes being silenced because I am a women, even in situations which would affect women, but white men are in charge or at the top and therefore only their white male point of view is valid. These white men might think that they create welcoming places but they can’t create these places as long as they don’t leave their status quo.
Already that you post answers only after YOUR approval is paternalistic and dominance. You make the decisions what your readers are allowed to read or not. I am not a child Macon and I want to read all the responses you get and not just those you think are valid. If it is actual racist shyt you can delete it later. You censored (didn’t publish) some of my answers you didn’t consider as valid for your blog. I am not a child and I don’t need you to tell me what I can tell other people or not. You don’t tell me if I talk “nice” enough etc.
For me as somebody who wants to see white supremacy deconstructed your blog isn’t a comfortable place. Like in many real life organizations against racism, where white men are/were at the top, I am silenced if I don’t obey white men’s dominance and I have also to witness how others are silenced.
I also know too many women who are married/engaged with abusive men and even if they are beaten etc. they will defend this relationship. You call police and they defend the man/husband. Whatever reason this women might have. I think for you the psychology of humans is a very unknown topic, which is perhaps the result of your lack of empathy.

wrong, I didn’t imply it, but your simple-minded white American brain just again proves the inability of the Macons of the world to understand complex issues the same way you don’t understand how irrelevant the award is when looking at the whole picture.

No. I didn’t “represent” anything. JW didn’t mention anyone by name but you did. You mentioned me and YOU mentioned me in comparison to “most of the many POC” who visit your blog and see it “very different” from what I do (as if I’ve said a single damn thing about your blog vs. SPECIFIC things you’ve said on your blog).

You couldn’t keep my name out your mouth AND I challenged you to support your claim about “most of the many POC” who visit your blog and see it differently from the way you assume I see it. THE ONLY WAY to legitimately determine that is to:

list the comments “most of the many POC” have said on the topics I’ve commented on and show how “different” their comments are ON THOSE TOPICS…

Otherwise all you have is turds of bs in your hand that you’re calling gold nuggets. In other words, this is yet another example of the lack of seriousness you have to so many of the things you say. You can’t be serious about this idea that “most of the many POC” visiting your blog do so and see it “very different” from I do unless those POC have stated directly how I’ve said something on your blog that they see “very different” from the way I do.

So I’ve misrepresented NOTHING but you’ve pulled more sh*t out your azz making your own self look stupid. That’s why I called your fraudulent ass out at Restructure! when you put my name in your mouth as you tried to act like you’re receptive to things I’ve said on your blog.

Simply, it doesn’t make sense to, on one hand, act like my comments have contributed positively to how you’ve dealt with issues on your blog then, out the other side of your mouth, bring my name up OUT OF THE BLUE (again, JW didn’t mention me by name) and attempt to marginalize me with your “some of my best friends are Black” kind of logic housed in the “most of the many POC” rhetoric of yours.

Obviously, just like you made up that “devious moron” bs, you’ve made up this idea in your head that I see your blog…. YOUR WHOLE ENTIRE BLOG… as something negative while “most of the many POC” see it as positive. You don’t base that on anything I’ve said about YOUR BLOG which is not to be confused with the SPECIFIC things I’ve said about SPECIFIC posts.

It’s the same kind of CHICKENSHIT tactic you used to claim and confuse criticism of your thoughts as criticism of your person. It’s chickenshit on a broken stick at that. Weak as hell.

. She claimed that because I’ve declined publication of a couple of comments by two POC (Nquest and Restructure!) out of the many, many comments there by other POC.

1) JW didn’t mention anyone by name and didn’t specify a number.
2) We’ve got a comment or two from a poster or two here who didn’t find your blog a “friendly” place.
3) Different people are drawn to things for different reasons. And, really, there are that “MANY” POC who comment on your blog and fewer who have anything to say in terms of objecting to me and Restructure. Oh but you’ve had plenty of White ones who did. I leave it to you and JW to talk about what that says about your blog.

Again, you figured you’d be cute and “put my name in your mouth” when JW called NO ONE by name. Not only did you mention me by name but you failed to both mention Restructure — even though, now, you want to claim/admit that JW was talking about “two” POC, me being just one — and you also failed to reference the Asian American who serves as an example of someone of the same ethnic group who sees your blog “very different” from the way Restructure does.

Anti-racist places where PoC are censored or also whites who don’t agree with you, is not an anti-racist place.

Macon, your WHITENESS is showing.

Now run your mouth about MISREPRESENTATIONS… i.e. what happened to “most of the many Whites who visit my blog”… Where the hell was that in your response, Macon? Somehow, out of all the people JW could have been alluding to like 911saJoke… A Black female poster or two… Other White females beside JW… OUT OF ALL THE PEOPLE if even just the two (Restructure and I)… out of all those people, you had me on your brain.

my focus is whiteness, and there isn’t much more room in each post for elaborate explanations of what people of color go through at the hands of whites, on top of the white tendency I’m explaining; also, when I do offer some of that, I run the risk of setting up the people I quote or describe as spokespeople for their whole group. I’ve long struggled with how to do that, and whether I even should do that, and Nquest and Restructure! have helped with that struggle in their comments.

If that was the first thing someone read where you referenced me, they would think you hold me in high regard. After all, if we go with that statement alone, you credit me (along with Restructure) with helping you with that “struggle” of yours. The way you whine about how I “misrepresent” you — when you have a “nasty” habit of not only misrepresenting posters but sources you reference and/or use as support — AND the way you went out of your way to contrast me with other POC who see your blog “very differently” from the way I do…

Well, let’s just say you would have given that person the wrong impression about what you really thought about me someone you’ve made the ugliest statement about comparing me to someone who abused you as a child or whatever when all I’ve done is asked you to support the things you say and insist on you not bullsh*tting me.

Also, that person would have never gotten the impression that you take a “who cares?” attitude to whether you tell me a bold-faced lie. No, they would think that you’d have much more respect for someone who you credit with helping you with your “struggle.”

Okay, Macon says he wasn’t playing the “some of my best friends are Black” game but, honestly, how is Macon’s claim (or counter-claim) that his blog isn’t “unfriendly” to POC any different from the people rushing to say the election of Barack Obama signals a post-racial, “no excuses”, don’t say it’s racism America?

no difference. It is this “I only see what I want to see”-mentality and what they don’t want to see does not exist. It shows what comes out with a simplifying attitude, not seeing the whole picture of the mosaic but only certain stones of it.

And it’s not like we hadn’t dealt with this before. When Macon was trying to defend his idea of what Black folks think in his “express amazement” thread, Macon basically said he got his idea from his Black friends/associates — that he had gathered the notion that Blacks make Whites prove themselves (trustworthy), the same way Whites do Blacks.

He cited his friends as a way to say I couldn’t be right in saying he was wrong and had misinterpreted the people who originally said he gathered his idea from.

So we have a pattern we have a pattern of Macon playing the “my Blacks are better than you(rs)” game.

I think it is also a question of sincerity as well as feeling safe/comfortable within one self. With that I mean if a person feels safe within one self criticism can’t destroy an entire personality. It allows errors and mistakes. Such person doesn’t have to surround him/herself with “praisers” because s/he knows who s/he is.
I think it is also a question of self-esteem. What expectations does one have about him/herself and why is for some uncritical praise more important than actual dialogue.

Wow jwbe. I just never imagined that someone would visit the US and bother seeing Leavenworth. I thought it was more for the locals and international visitors would see it for the cheese it is.

I’ve been there several times, but I also lived in Washington for all my youth, so that isn’t saying much. The natural scenery is beautiful, and it’s fun to visit, but I didn’t think anyone would know about it outside of the region.